Credit: Michael Harvey
Born in 1975 in Paris, France
Lives and works in La Ferté-Gaucher, France
Sonia Hamza is a Franco-Moroccan artist whose work explores the boundaries between image and material, through pieces that question notions of identity, territory, and temporality.
A graduate in Fashion Design from ENSAA Duperré in Paris (1997), she continued her studies the following year at Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design in London. She later deepened her photographic practice while assisting French photographer Jonathan Abbou, and refined her technical skills with Thai photographer Manit Sriwanichpoom, with whom she regularly collaborates on the editing of her photographs. In parallel, she trained in tapestry weaving with Claude-Marie Thibert-Boutou, Meilleur Ouvrier de France, an experience that led her to merge textile and photography, creating works that combine embroidery, photography, and graphic transfer.
Exploring both urban and rural dynamics as well as fleeting moments of everyday life, her work has been showcased in numerous artistic events across Europe, including the Audiovisual Black & White Festival in Porto, Portugal (2013), the Format International Photography Festival in Derby, UK (2017), and Encontros de Imagem in Braga, Portugal (2022), where she was awarded the Second Discovery Prize. She has also exhibited extensively in Asia, notably at the Yangon Photo Festival in Myanmar (2015) and the Photo Bangkok Festival in Thailand (2018).
In 2025, Sonia Hamza undertook a residency at the Goethe-Institut in Lisbon to further develop Pause Longue, an artistic project initiated shortly after the Covid-19 pandemic, which reflects on our relationship with time and slowness.
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My artistic practice is rooted in the sensitive reinterpretation of multiple identities through a combination of photographic, textile, ceramic, narrative and documentary techniques. Drawing on family roots, travels and emotional experiences, each project emerges from a sense of displacement — physical, emotional or symbolic — and unfolds as an exploration of the tensions between the self and the other, and between here and elsewhere.
At the intersection of the personal and the collective, I examine the visible and invisible traces we carry: family legacies, the scars of exile, the contradictions of mixed heritage and generational silences. Rather than viewing these fragmented narratives as gaps to be filled, I approach them as raw materials to be activated. Slowness, blur and thread — whether textile or narrative — become the vehicles of a visual language in which error, accident and emotion all have a place.
My approach is embodied, artisanal and often intuitive. It seeks to give form to that which eludes us: faltering memories, silenced voices and displaced gazes. By delving into the margins, interstices and dissonances of my world, I propose an affective cartography—not to deliver a fixed truth, but to allow what resonates in the void to emerge.
My work is thus rooted in an ongoing exploration of otherness and reconciliation, employing frameworks that render the invisible visible and give voice to the unsaid.
Solo Exhibitions
2024 – Pause Longue – Autumn Time, Institut Français of Tétouan, Morocco.
2023 – Wool song, Omnius Gallery, Arles, France.
2021 – Bangkok’s Chinatown beats to its own drum, virtual exhibition, www.parisartistes.com.
2019 – Nippon Kiss, Médiathèque and MAPA, Château-Thierry, France.
2018 – Nippon Kiss, Espace 36, Saint-Omer, France.
2017 – Nippon Kiss, Soy Sauce Factory, Bangkok, Thailand.
2017 – Passe-moi le ciel !, Galleries’ night, Bangkok, Thailand.
2016 – Nippon Kiss, Les Cuizines, Chelles, France.
2011 – Workshop, 59Rivoli, Paris, France
Group Exhibitions
2024–2025 – Wool song, Art Week Miami Beach, The Betsy Hotel, Miami Beach, USA.
2024 – Shades of forgotten steps, Abla Ababou Gallery, Rabat, Morocco.
2024 – Bangkok’s Chinatown beats to its own drum 06, Biennale of Contemporary Art, Maison des Arts Plastiques, Champigny-sur-Marne, France.
2023–2024 –Colours of Tokyo and Bangkok’s Chinatown beats to its own drum, “Memories of our Cultures,” The Betsy Hotel, Miami Beach, USA.
2023 – Pause Longue, “Un Air d’Été,” Abla Ababou Gallery, Rabat, Morocco.
2022 – Bangkok’s Chinatown beats to its own drum, Encontros da Imagem, Braga, Portugal.
2021 – Vibrations, Bastille Design Center, Paris, France.
2020 – 14th Julia Margaret Cameron Award, FotoNostrum Gallery, Barcelona, Spain.
2018 – The French Connection, Bangkok Photo Biennale, Bangkok University Gallery, Thailand.
2017 – Flâneur Retrospective, Format International Photography Festival, Derby, UK
2017 – New Invasion Festival, Torres Vedras, Portugal
2017 – Le Jeu de cette famille, “Objectif Femmes,” 9th District City Hall, Paris, France
2016 – Ilsan Artistics, Goyan Aram Nuri Art Center, Seoul, South Korea.
2016 – 6Factory, Clichy-la-Garenne, France.
2016 – Flâneur, Jardim do Príncipe Real, Lisbon, Portugal.
2016 – Elles Aussi au Silo, Le Silo U1, Château-Thierry, France.
2016 – SlideLuck Trieste, Museum of the Territory of Poreč, Croatia, Jun
2016 – SlideLuck Tokyo.
2015 – SlideLuck Fez, SlideLuck Roma & Bitume, SlideLuck Madrid & Manila, SlideLuck Trieste
2015 – 7th Yangon Photo Festival, Yangon, Myanmar
2014 – Open Studio, Sefrou, Morocco
2013 – Audiovisual Black & White Festival, Porto, Portugal
2012 – Tezukuriichi and Aozorakoten Art Markets, Tokyo, Japan
2011 – 59°, 59Rivoli, Paris, France
2010 – Mickeyland, Galerie Art Présent, Paris, France
2010 – 59Rivoli, Paris, France
2007–2008 – La Villa de Mademoiselle B (Barbie), Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine, Paris, France
Residencies
2025 - Goethe Institute with Procurarte, Lisbon, Portugal.
2024 – Maison des Chapitres, France.
2023 – Institut Français of Tétouan, Morocco.
2019 – Lizières, Épaux-Bézu, France.
2017 – ProcurArte, New Invasion Festival, Torres Vedras, Portugal.
2016–2017 – Project189, Bangkok, Thailand
2016 – ProcurArte, Flâneur, Lisbon, Portugal.
2014 – AIR Culture Vultures, Sefrou, Morocco.
2010–2011 – 59Rivoli, Paris, France
Awards & Distinctions
2022 – 2nd Prize, Discovery, Encontros da Imagem, Braga, Portugal
2017 – 1st Prize, “Identity,” Fix Photo Festival Awards, London, UK
2015 – Best Portfolio Review Award, Hamburg Triennial of Photography, Germany
2014 – Nominee, Still Life, Black & White Spider Awards
2014 – 3rd Prize, Silken Photo Award
2013 – 3rd Prize, Métropole competition, Myphotoagency.com
2013 – Award, Printemps de la Photographie, Romorantin, France
2009 – 2nd Prize, Paris vous sourit, GALERIE VU’, Paris, France
2009 – 2nd Prize, Cantine Argentine Photography Competition
2001 – 1st Prize, Multisensory Board for Cartier “Eau” fragrance, Créations Aromatiques
Education & Training
2024 - Ceramics workshop with Amine Bakhti, Artisan Village of Tétouan, Morocco.
2013 – Tapestry weaving workshop, Claude-Marie Thibert-Boutou (Meilleur Ouvrier de France), Charentenay, France
2011 – Evening courses in analogue and digital photography, City of Paris
2009 – Assistant to photographer Jonathan Abbou, Montreuil, France
2000–2001 – Anatomy & Morphology, ENSAA Duperré, Paris, France
1997–1998 – Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Arts, Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design, London, UK
1994–1997 – BTS in Fashion Design, ENSAA Duperré, Paris, France
Contact
sonia.hamza@gmail.com
00 33 6 08 68 41 16